BENTON – Mathematics professor Mingqing Xiao of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale concealed his Chinese research while winning an American grant, grand jurors alleged in U.S. district court on April 21.
They indicted him on charges of wire fraud and making a false statement.
Xiao, age 59, resides in Makanda.
The university hired him in 2000.
Grand jurors found his research included partial differential equations, control theory, optimization theory, dynamical systems and computational science.
Xiao is alleged to have received about $180,000 from Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province in 2017, to run from 2018 to 2022.
According to the indictment, he renewed a contract for a monthly salary with Shenzhen University of the same province in April 2018, to run to 2023.
He allegedly agreed to teaching and research obligations and agreed to apply to the government for research grants.
On Sept. 21, 2018, he applied to National Science Foundation of the U.S., which awards funding through competitive grants to American colleges, universities, and other institutions, for $151,099.
Grant applicants must disclose all current and pending support from whatever source and all affiliations, but Xiao allegedly didn’t disclose his grant from the Guangdong foundation or his contract with Shenzhen University.
He applied to the university in March 2019, for about $90,000 from 2020 to 2023.
In April 2019, National Science Foundation contacted him to make sure his support statement included worldwide sources, as its award size depended on what other support and commitments he had.
In May 2019, he replied, “I don’t have other grants or pending proposals but this one,” according to the indictment.
National Science Foundation gave him the grant in July 2019.
Upon securing the indictment, U.S. attorney Stephen Weinhoeft issued a statement connecting it to the Chinese government’s “ambitious strategic goals.”
Weinhoeft stated that lack of domestic innovation hampers China’s ability to achieve its goals.
He stated that Premier Li Keqiang underscored the dilemma in 2019 at a Communist Party gathering, by saying, “Our capacity for innovation is not strong and our weakness in terms of core technologies for key fields remains a salient problem.”
“China resorts to various forms of economic aggression to achieve its strategic goals, including hacking, theft, espionage, and recruiting non-traditional collectors in academia to acquire U.S. technologies and intellectual property,” Weinhoeft stated.
The district court clerk assigned trial to Senior District Judge Phil Gilbert, a former SIU trustee, who recused himself.
The clerk assigned District Judge Staci Yandle.
Magistrate Judge Reona Daly set a first appearance May 13.